DreamCenter update

by Daniel Brook

The controversial plan to build an enormous faith-based social service center and church in the former Metropolitan Hospital building at Eighth and Race streets is heading to Common Pleas Court. In January, the city zoning board overruled an initial appeal by the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation (PCDC), which opposes the building conversion. According to John Chin, PCDC's executive director, the group's lawyers have met the state court's 30-day filing deadline for continuing the appeals process.

The hospital building, to be renamed the Dream Center according to officials at the Christian Life Center, the Bensalem, Bucks County Pentecostal church backing the plan, borders the Chinatown neighborhood. PCDC officials oppose the center for fear it will increase the neighborhood's homeless population. "[There are] four or five homeless shelters in Chinatown already," says Chin.

Christian Life Center officials have not specified exactly what they plan to use the building for. "Our overall purpose is to spread the gospel through our ministry to underprivileged people," was all Nancy Harris, a church spokesperson, would say.

Chin says PCDC "got different messages from them. It's difficult for us as a community group to figure out just what they want to do."

Robin Schatz, a staffer in Councilman Frank DiCicco's office, says the councilman will continue to oppose the project. "We support the community and they are opposed, therefore we are opposed," Schatz says. The building is located in DiCicco's district.

Tower Power

A team of architects and urban planners including a pair with Philadelphia ties won the design competition for the World Trade Center site. Among the winning team, headed by Daniel Libeskind, was urban planner Gary Hack, the dean of the Graduate School of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania. In addition to his university post, Hack chairs the Philadelphia City Planning Commission and sits on the Philadelphia Historical Commission. Libeskind, himself a professor at Penn, rarely sits anywhere in Philadelphia. The architect serves on the faculty of two universities besides Penn and lives in Berlin. According to Hack, this summer Libeskind's course will be taught in Berlin and about two dozen Penn students will make the trip to take it. Luckily for his students, even if Libeskind is 4,000 miles away, he'll soon have a major project just up the Jersey Turnpike.